Spenningssøkingens sosialitet: En sosiologisk undersøkelse av verdisystem

The present study illuminates participation in risk sports with an emphasis on voluntary risk taking. Throughout the western world, risk sports are getting increasingly popular. The rising interest in such activities and the motivation for voluntary risk taking is in this dissertation analyzed from a sociological point of view. Risk sports are examined from two different analytical levels: macro- and meso- (group) levels. The main research topic concerning the macro-level investigates how general social changes might affect participation in risk sports. From a meso-level, questions such as which values dominate in specific risk sports, how are these values learnt, how is status achieved and what the role of risk taking in such cultures is, are asked. The macro-level analysis can be seen as a meta-analysis of existing research linking risk sports and modernity, while the meso-level analysis is based on fieldwork and interviews of base-jumpers and surfers as its empirical fundament. The collected meso-level data are analyzed first and foremost within a Bourdieusian framework in which the main focus has been on actions and attitudes that allocate status and prestige within risk sports. The “rules of the game” in surfing and base-jumping have been studied in regard to the distribution of symbolic capital within these subcultures.